2k words
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“As the lady wishes,” he replied, kicking the horse into a trot. They passed by her waddling group of Skaven, who looked very out of place among the taller species. They were waddling along in a line, with Kretch at the front leading the way, their snouts darting about in nervous twitches. Skyseeker pitied them. She had reacted much the same, when she’d first left the under-empire of Skavenblight and saw sunlight for the very first time, the vastness of the skies, and the dangers lurking beyond the underground. Of course, she was an adaptable Skaven, but she’d always prefer to have a few tonnes of dirt over her head compared to open sky.
Beyond them were the Brettonian knights and the orcs, the latter lumbering along on their giant feet or their even more giant boars. Mazkha was not very hard to pick out among their number, her stupid fat tits jumbling about like two overflowing knapsacks whenever her mount moved and swerved. She was to the front and left of the main orc host, carrying a giant quiver of spears on her back. She silently begged the Horned Rat that Roderick would not see her and make his way over.
“Hail, Mazkha,” Roderick called, Skyseeker deflating as she groaned. She felt like a captive as he steered his horse in her direction, pulling up beside the green beast, her turned a sideways grin on her human. “How are you finding our Empire?”
“Better now that we’re on the move again,” she replied. “That tavern back there ain’t my kind of thing. Shit drink, and poor company on the most part,” she added with a distinct look at Skyseeker. “These woods ain’t as pretty as Brettonia’s, granted, but it’s got its charm.”
“Just wait until you see the heart of my homeland,” Roderick said. “Beyond this province is the capital, and the sprawling vineyards where I grew up stretch around the province as far as the eye can see, all commanded by a city bigger than any other on the entire continent. It’s truly a sight to see.”
“Perhaps you can take me out riding sometime,” Mazka suggested, exposing her tusks in a sly grin. “Show me all the wonders the humie world has to offer.”
“Perhaps I will,” he replied. The way the two smiled at each other made Skyseeker want to throw herself into the river Reik.
“Enough chitter-talk,” she insisted. “Come, man-thing, the ‘Burg awaits and we have no time for orc breeders,”
“We’ll catch up later, little knight,” Mazkha said, the way she casually shrugged off Skyseeker’s dismissal making her rat-blood boil. Roderick whipped the horse back into speed, and when she was sure he wasn’t looking, Skyseeker bent out an arm and gave the orc a rude gesture she’d learned from the sailors.
It took them a few more minutes to reach the vanguard of the host, comprised of the warboss Morgoroth and a few of his personal guard. The warboss was far too large to mount a boar, but from the length of his strides she didn’t think he’d have much trouble keeping pace with cavalry.
Beyond them lay the open road that curled away and eventually up an incline, the surrounding woods filtering the sunlight to make the evening seem more gloomier than usual. The racket of the thousands of clocking boots died away as they moved a short distance away, the horse grunting through its oversized lungs as it climbed the hill.
The breeze hit her face as they approached the peak, the angle of the terrain giving a commanding view across the countryside, luscious fields of bulbous forests stretching away. The roots here were thick and stretched far from the trunks, so Roderick had them walk the short way up to the top, so as not to risk it breaking an ankle.
Below she could see the highway carving a furrow through the hillside. The river Reik and the Grey Mountains formed barriers to the left and right, a relatively narrow strait of land formed between. She reached up to fiddle with the dials on her trusty goggles, little clicks filling her ears as she adjusted the magnifiers.
“I see it!” she declared, thrusting a paw forward. “The ‘Burg! Thought it would be bigger considering all the blather about it.”
“That’s Antorpe, lass,” Roderick said. “A minor port settlement, yo don’t need your goggles to see that, did you?”
The collection of buildings was pitiful, a few nondescript stone walls peeking up above the treetops providing a rough outline of its size and shape. She could just make out a few jutting docks and piers from where the hamlet met the water, but of any river trade there was no sign, not even of a single boat. It was perhaps a day’s ride or less away, and even from here it looked desolate.
“Ah, well, o-of course Skaven knew that,” she stammered. “Was just testing your geographical knowledge of Empire, of course. Now shush, I can’t examinate when you’re talking.”
She swept her scoped gaze over Antorpe, taking note of its surrounding terrain and defences, in case she would need them later. As she prepared to lift her goggles to the horizon, movement in the tree caught her eye, and she flicked her direction to the right.
“Marienburg is that way, lass,” Roderick said.
“SHHH!” she hissed. “Skaven sees something, down there-there!”
Off to the right of Antorpe, she spotted a flock of birds take to the wing, disturbed by a clamour below. She couldn’t see inside the gloomy shelter of the canopies, so she flicked her vision mode to night, squeaking in pain when they washed out with pure whiteness and burned her eyes. She flicked to the next mode, which turned the world to shades of grey and black, where moving creatures would appear as a lighter colour.
The caught a wisp of a figure as it scurried out of view behind a treeline, reappearing a short distance to the west as it crossed a clearing. She tried to track its movements, but doubled back when another flurry of movement followed in its path after a few delayed moments. The held her eyes on the same spot, waiting for a third to appear, and when it did she pulled all her concentration into that one moment to grab any detail she could, and what she saw made her heart sink with dread.
Her paws dropped to her weapons, one pulling Von Kessel’s rapier free, another drawing a smaller dagger for her off-paw. Roderick didn’t ask what had her riled up, pulling a handgun from his holster.
“How many?” he asked her. Even the horse had detected something was off, the beast whickering a complaint from nearby.
“Fifteen or twenty,” she said. There was the sound of approaching footsteps, and they turned to face them, weapons at the ready. Another bird flew away from all the noise, their approach drawing closer to their hill. She didn’t know for how long, but it seemed they’d been spotted.
From over the tops of the shrubs appeared the points of blades and blunt weapons, polearms towering above as their bearers crept forward. An axe came down to part the thicket, and from the deeper wilderness drew a small, hulking figure. It was draped in the familiar colours of red and brow, its clothing consisting of different qualities of cloth, all poorly stitched together to form a tunic. On its head rested a halfhelm, a furious snout peeking out from below the armour, pearly teeth bared.
The Skaven was not alone. Two pairs of ratmen skulked after it, then another four, then another six. Over two dozen of them appeared in a matter of movements, their many eyes locked on the pair as Skyseeker and Roderick held their ground. The instinct turn and run was there, but the Skaven were almost as close to them as they were to the horse, and outrunning so many Skaven would be a tall order, even for her.
“Get back to the horse,” Roderick warned, reaching to draw his other pistol.
“And let you take on all the rats?” she scoffed. “Last time we got swarmed by the vermintide, I lost you. No chance!”
He could see there was no time to argue, giving her a sideways nod as he readied his guns. “Then we stand together then,” he replied.
One of the Skaven loosed a wordless cry of a challenge, and Roderick wasted not time, his weapon sparking in his paw as he sent a bullet downrange.
The Skaven’s call died in a wet gurgle as the shot hit him square in the chest, sending him crumpling. The echoing report of the gun acted as the signal for the Skaven to charge, their feet skipping and leaping over rocks and roots as they rushed them down.
Roderick fired off a second shot, another Skaven at the front of the ranks dropping. There was no time to reload, the human drawing his greatsword from his back, the giant blade as tall as he was.
He met the Skaven with his own charge, Skyseeker joining him after a brief delay. She glanced him swinging his giant weapon from right to left, cleaving down the first Skaven who got in his path, deflecting a jab from another’s spear as anther rat pressed in from the side. She was to his left, leading with her rapier to thrust out at her first target, a clanrat with a shield in one paw and a sword in the other. She was quicker than his block, catching him with the point in his jugular. He fell away scrambling at his throat, his companions indifferent to his injury as they shoved him aside to close in on her.
She yielded the ground to them, as standing would mean they could approach her blind spots, Skyseeker keeping her paws constantly shifting and moving. She blocked an overhead strike from a poleaxe, gliding her rapier down the haft to skewer the clanrat, darting away as his cohorts tried to cut and slash her.
“Get the traitorous-thing!” one of the rats screeched, lifting his blade as he cried out a jeer. Her eyes flicked to the Clan Mors emblem stitched to his tunic. She took a moment to be humbled that her notoriety had reached even the ears of the foot soldiers of her enemies. Where they ahd come from, or how they had found her and her allied army, these were questions she had no time to ponder.
Some of the Skaven attacking Roderick diverted their attention to her, despite him being the bigger target, whirlwinding his sword as though it were nothing, never keeping his great weapon still as it sliced the vermintide apart when it neared.
Skyseeker concentrated on countering her growing foes, knowing she would do well to worry for herself than Roderick. Skaven swarming tactics were ingenious, but it had its flaws. Breaking up her opponents into one-on-one duels, or two-on-one fights could break down the swarm into manageable bits, and the Skaven helped in this as they fought each other for room, armour and leather bumping together as she forced them to pursue her.
She kept her back to the top of the hill, the high ground giving her that that little bit of advantage she had to utilise, keeping herself at eye-level to the taller, burlier male rats. She hacked and parried, her cloak fluttering as she dodged jabs and cleaves from sickles and cudgels, the air filling with red mist as she countered and poked with her gilded weapon. The rapier was a balanced and beautiful weapon that was very good at stabbing. Just like she was, all things considered.
While the Skaven were numerous, their advantage of surprise had been cut short thanks to her careful examinations, and their fighting in the open was costing them. Where she prodded and poked with her smaller weapons, Roderick hacked the ratmen down with brutal efficiency, his giant weapon able to pierce through two Skaven at once with enough force behind it. The ambush had become a massacre, two thirds of Skaven slain in a matter of moments. The final few ambushers turned to flee, some dropping their weapons in their bid to escape into the woods.
“Yeah, that’s right-right!” she jeered, shaking a fist at them as she gave pursuit. “Flee before the glorious might of BREEDER-POWER! AND MAN-THING HELPED TOO, HAHA!”
With fear to drive them and no weapon to slow them down, they could retreat faster than she could chase, but the few stragglers weren’t worth the effort. She turned to move back by Roderick’s side, grinning up at him in victory, but his expression was more stoic than she cared for.
“Don’t celebrate too early,” he said. “Where there’s one Skaven…”
A chill rolled up her spine as a low, baleful call of a horn drummed up from the woods behind her. She snapped round, noting it was coming from the far side of the host, towards the rear. Another one blared out, this time from the east, a deep note echoing out across the province.
“What is that?” she demanded, looking up at Roderick in confusion, the human frowning as he glanced out across the landscape.
“My outriders,” he said. “One horn means enemy contact. It’s an ambush.”
Gunshots rang out from the north, the volleys of fire quickly joined by the clanging of steel kissing steel. She could see nothing through the canopy, but she could make out the sounds of chaos, and of many chittering snouts joining together in a battle cry from somewhere close by.